Tuesday 29 October 2019

29th October 2019

sunshine
glinting on streetwise telephone wires
preening sparrows

© Rachel Green 2019

Guilt and Regret
6.
the rear garden wall
backed onto the canal towpath
where my grandfather took deliveries of flour
for her bakery on the floor below,
long derilict by the time I was walking,
the ceilings fallen through
into the cround floor
leading to a cathedral-like space
between the ground and the rafters above
where bats hung and swallows
built their mud and wattle nests.
Toeholds from the towpath side
led ten feetto the wall top,
then a balanced walk
over the old lead slates of the pigsty
and up the second floor wall of the old bakery
to a broken window
where the room beyond was filled with pigeon shit
and the rotting floorboards
of small, still-intact rooms
where the chromium oxide paint left green dust on our coats and jumpers
and the wattle-and-daub walls held testament
to nineteenth century ascendants.
We weren't allowed there,
among the dust and spider webs;
the old tins and kitchens pots of bygone years
but we lied to my mother about our daily wanderings
and the bygone treasures we coveted.

© Rachel Green 2019

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